The Blood Detective

10

Foster was back at the morgue. I should get myself a bed here, he thought. A visit to the Gents and a quick glance in the mirror showed it to be an appropriate place to be -- his skin was the colour of ashes, deep gashes of black under his eyes. Some of those on the slab looked better than he did.

He got there as Carlisle was finishing the autopsy on the tramp.

'Anything new?' he asked.

'He wasn't hanged to death, that's for sure,' Carlisle said. He pointed to the neck. 'There's no fracture of the vertebrae. But then, if a drunken tramp were to commit suicide, one would hardly expect an expert job. But there is no mark from the rope around his neck, which there would have been if the noose had been applied before death, and no sign of bruising either. No signs of any capillary damage in the heart, lungs or eyes -- or anything else that indicates asphyxiation.

The only visible marks on the body are quite severe pressure sores on his buttocks and shoulder blades, congruent with spending a lot of time on his back.'

'Bed sores?'

'Yes.'

Foster knew that a lot of those who slept rough, and fell ill and became more immobile, suffered these sores. Pavements, cardboard boxes, tended to do that to damaged bodies. Though this guy did not look like the sort who'd been outstaying his welcome at death's door.

'So what killed him?'

'Heart failure.'

'You sure?'

'Almost certain. What caused it is less clear. All the internal organs were in good condition, including the heart. It seems as if it just failed. We've sent some specimens out to toxicology. That may give us more of a clue.'

Foster looked at the body, the well-tended hands and feet, the clear skin. 'Doesn't that strike you as odd? A derelict from the street in good working condition? No enlarged heart, no cirrhosis of the liver, no blood thicker than porridge? What did he drink on the streets? Wheatgrass juice?'

Carlisle pulled a face. 'I can only tell you based on what I see: his body is in good condition, exactly what you would expect of a healthy man in his forties. Though there are signs of drug use, specifically a few marks on the arm. He could be diabetic, of course . . .' His voice tailed off; he moved to the arm and picked it up. 'The reference was scratched on with a smaller implement than the one used on Darbyshire.'

'Like a Stanley knife?'

'It's consistent with the use of that, yes.'

'So there was a reference, but no stab wound and no mutilation?'

Carlisle shook his head. 'I've checked the entire body. He possesses every fingernail, eyelash and tooth he should.'

Why stage the hanging, Foster thought? There was no reason to cover the murder up, not when you've carved a message on one part of the body. Had something gone wrong?

Carlisle removed his gloves with an urgent snap.

'I need a cup of coffee,' he said. 'Then I have another body to look at. Care to join me?'

'Yes to the coffee, no to the body. Not until you've finished, anyway.'

The two men turned to walk to the door. Foster stopped.

'You've done with this guy?'

'Not sure there's much more I can do. Not until we get the results from toxicology.'

'Good. If it's all right with you, I've got someone outside who's here to clean him up.'

Carlisle bristled. 'He's been washed thoroughly,'

he said, defensively.

Foster shook his head. 'No, I mean a different kind of clean-up.'

The embalmer worked with great care and gentleness.

She was a dowdy, motherly woman with a round, cheerful face that seemed at odds with her profession.

'Sometimes I like to speak to them as I work,' she had warned Foster when she arrived.

'Feel free,' he replied. 'Not sure you'll get much conversation.'

She stroked the dead man's tangled, bedraggled hair. 'Let yourself get in a bit of state, didn't you?'

she said in a sing-song voice.

She brought over the tap used to hose down the tables. Shielding the dead man's face with her hand, she carefully wet the hair with a few gentle squirts.

Then she applied shampoo, working it into the scalp with her fingers in circular motions, rinsing it off with the tap. She produced a comb from her bag and straightened the hair, breaking up knots with a few stern strokes. With a pair of barber's scissors she started to trim away.

'Can't say I've ever had to just cut someone's hair and give them a shave before,' she said, without looking at Foster. 'Usually the last thing I do after they've been prepped. If they need it, of course.'

'Sorry,' he said.

'No, it's quite nice, to be honest. I used to do this a lot back in the days when it was common to have an open casket or viewings and you had to make the deceased look the best you could. But less and less now. People don't want to see their relatives or friends once they've passed over. They cut themselves off from death.'

For a fleeting second, Foster recalled standing over the body of his dead father. In his professional life he had seen countless dead bodies, hundreds, but nothing had prepared him for the effect of seeing the lifeless body of the man he had loved and idolized.

'Who is he?' the embalmer asked, stepping back to admire her work between snips.

'We don't know,' Foster said, back in the present.

'That's why I asked you to come and do this. We hope it'll help.'

In less than five minutes the hair was neatly cut.

Then she produced a bar of shaving soap and a brush and with some hot water lathered up the man's beard.

With a few gentle strokes of a razor, she began to remove it.

'Why not just use an electric shaver?' Foster asked, marvelling at the almost tender way she cupped the man's chin in her hand as she shaved him, a world away from the clinical way that bodies were usually dealt with in the morgue.

'Never shaves as close,' she added, the serene smile still on her face. Soon the beard was gone. 'There you go,' she said.

Foster said goodbye, showing her out.

He returned and stood at the end of the table, by the man's feet. He looked at his face. The jawline was firm, the cheekbones prominent, not sunken. He was looking at the face of a dark-haired man in his mid-forties. The state of the hands and feet, his teeth - yellow-tinged but well-maintained - the shape of his face, all indicated a man who had taken care of himself before he fell into disrepair. Foster guessed a white-collar worker of some sort - a man who, until recently, lived in comfort.

At the incident room Foster pinned two pictures of the tramp - one unkempt, one groomed - and one of the unknown dead woman to the whiteboard. The room was quiet, most of the team out pounding the streets around the previous night's crime scene in search of a break. The morning had brought nothing new: no witnesses, though Drinkwater had brought in the garage owner and Foster was waiting for news on his interview.

After fetching a coffee, he went to his desk and sat down at his computer. He called up the missing persons database. Beside his keyboard he laid out a freshly printed picture of the groomed corpse. He narrowed the search by entering what he knew of the body: male, Caucasian, aged between forty and fifty, black-grey hair, five feet ten inches in height, brown eyes, average build. Under distinguishing features he mentioned the birthmark on his back, thankful for the latter detail because it would take thousands off the search results.

There were fifteen hits.

He called them up. All but one carried photos.

Each time the image loaded on the screen, Foster enlarged it and held up the picture of the tramp to one side, eyes flicking between the two. Most were palpably different men, but the two he thought might possibly match up were put aside for closer inspection.

Then he saw him. Graham Ellis. A passport picture. The similarities between the two men were striking. The shape of the face, the thin lips . . .

There was a knock on his open door: DS Jenkins.

She nodded a wordless greeting.

'How's Barnes?' he asked.

She shrugged. 'Pretending he's fine. He needs time to digest it all. I offered him counselling . . .' Her voice tailed away, sensing his distraction.

'Look at this,' he said, turning his screen to face her.

She came forwards and leaned on the desk.

'Now look at this.'

Foster held up the photograph of the unknown corpse. Heather's eyes flicked between the two for some time. She stood up.

'They look alike,' she said. 'Who's the dead man?'

'That dead man is the same tramp we found swinging in the playground in Avondale Park.'

'He scrubbed up well.'

'Well, he's no tramp, that's for sure. Or if he was, not for very long.' He looked at the screen once more. 'And if he's the same guy as the one here, then two months ago he was working at a firm of solicitors in Altrincham.' He continued to look at the screen.

'What I don't understand is why he was hanging in the first place. Postmortem says he was dead fifteen hours before we found him, so he was killed a fair few hours before he was strung up. In which case, why do it?'

'To make it look like it was suicide, not murder?'

'But where does that fit in with everything else we know about the killer? He carves references into his victims for us to see. Why be shy about actually killing someone?'

'It was his first. Perhaps he wanted to put us off the scent for a few days. It worked.'

It was a pertinent point, delivered with no sense of self-justification, though he would not have blamed her if she had. But he did not agree.

'No, he wasn't trying to cover anything up. The opposite, I reckon: the hanging tells us something.'

'What was the cause of death?'

'Heart failure. Cause unknown. Tox might tell us more.'

He made a mental note to chase up the toxicology report on Darbyshire. They had had long enough; it was time to start shouting at them to get their arses in gear.

'Do we have any ID yet on last night's victim?'

Heather asked.

Foster shook his head slowly. 'Carlisle's doing her as we speak. There's a whole pile of missing person reports out there. Start with the most recent. Call Khan back in to give you a hand.'

Soon after Heather left, his phone rang. It was Drinkwater calling in from Acton. The garage owner was proving of little use. He had an alibi that stood up.

'Get a list of everyone who's ever rented the place,'

Foster said.

They were still looking for the way in. Something had to give somewhere, he thought, if they kept pressing.

He looked once more at the details of the missing solicitor on screen: 'There is great concern for Graham Ellis, who has been missing since 25 th January. He was last seen drinking in a pub near his home in Altrincham, Cheshire.'

His firm was Nicklin Ellis & Co; he was a partner.

Foster rang directory enquiries and was put through to their offices. It was Sunday, but he thought it was worth a try.

The message kicked in. The office was closed, as Foster expected. However, as he hoped, there was a number to ring in case of emergency. He dialled it.

'Tony Penberthy.'

The voice was eager, young.

'Hello, sorry to trouble you on a Sunday.'

'No worries,' Penberthy replied, with a hint of an Australian accent. 'How can I help?'

'I was hoping to have a word with my usual solicitor, Graham Ellis.'

'He's not on duty at the moment, sir. But I'm sure I can be of service. What's the problem, Mr . . . ?'

'Foster,' he answered, seeing no reason to lie. 'It's a bit delicate. Without sounding rude, I'd rather chat to Graham about it. Should I call back tomorrow?'

There was a pause at the other end.

'Look, Mr Foster, there's a problem here. You see, Graham Ellis has gone missing.'

'God. When?' Foster winced at his poor acting skills.

'A little over two months ago. Came as a real shock.'

'I bet it did. He just vanished?'

'He was drinking in the pub across the road after work with a few of us. Seemed fine. Left to go home.

Never seen since.'

'We were friends in the past. Lost touch. No one's heard anything?'

'Nothing.'

'I hope he's OK,' Foster added, remembering he was posing as a concerned member of the public, not a detective.

'Yeah,' the Australian said.

'You don't sound too convinced.'

There was a pause. Foster wondered how far to push it. The Australian seemed garrulous and he knew that, as a breed, solicitors weren't allergic to the sound of their own voices.

'Well, the word here is that he's taken his own life.'

'He didn't strike me as the suicidal type,' Foster added, wondering what the 'suicidal type' actually was. It didn't matter. It kept the conversation going.

Better this than being passed around the local nick in search of whichever copper took the report and filed it in the bottom drawer.

'Yeah.'

He sensed the solicitor's unease; he changed tack.

'I'd like to send his wife a card, share her concern.

Do you have an address?'

'He was divorced.'

'Really?'

'Last year. Very messy.'

Foster scribbled a note. 'Poor bloke,' he muttered.

'He had a tough time of it,' the Aussie replied.

'He was always a big drinker.'

'He was still putting it away. Especially during the last year or so. We reckon after leaving us he went back to his local and sank a few more, then decided he'd had enough and got a train somewhere.'

Foster knew that if the man downstairs was Graham Ellis, then whatever problems he'd found in the bottom of his glass that evening, he'd been going home to bed when he left that pub. But he never made it. Foster badly needed an ID of the body.

He ended the call and set about contacting West Midlands Police. But just as he was about to dial, the phone burst into life. It was the desk sergeant at Notting Hill police station. They'd had a walk-in, a man claiming to know about a possible murder. He was insisting on speaking to someone senior.

'The man has a package with him, sir,' the sergeant said, quietly yet forcefully.

When Foster arrived with DS Jenkins at Notting Hill, the man was sitting in an interview room nursing a cup of tea. He was dressed casually, yet still appeared smart: brown cords, navy-blue jumper over an open-necked shirt, a mane of dark hair that flopped occasionally over his brow. His face, shapeless yet with skin so clear it was hard to determine his age, eyes watery-blue, seemed familiar to Foster.

On the table was a shoebox.

'Sorry to keep you,' Foster said, introducing Heather.

The man nodded, smiled briefly. His eyes were vacant, the face white. He seemed in a daze.

'Simon Perry,' he said slowly, mechanically in a clear voice that indicated a wealthy upbringing.

The name was vaguely familiar, too, but Foster's eyes were drawn to the container on the table.

'What's in the box, sir?' Foster asked.

Each word he said took time to penetrate the field of shock and bewilderment that seemed to envelop Simon Perry. Eventually he spoke without emotion or expression.

'My sister's eyes.'

'Are you the only person who's handled this?'

'That I'm aware of, yes.'

'We'll need to take your prints,' Foster said. 'Rule out which are yours.'

'Of course.'

Foster pulled on a pair of latex gloves, and lifted the lid.

The bottom of the box had been padded with a bed of cotton wool. Resting on it were a pair of eyes. Foster could not believe the size: the whites were the size of golf balls, part of the optic nerve trailing behind them pathetically. He realized just how much of the eye was out of sight. They seemed intact, which indicated great care had been taken during their removal. There was little colour to them, a blue tint to the iris perhaps: presumably whatever pigment had been there had vanished in the hours since their removal.

He replaced the lid. 'What makes you think they're your sister's?'

'The colour.'

'I couldn't make out much colour, to be honest. . .'

'She suffers from albinism.'

'She's an albino?'

Perry's vacant eyes just continued to stare as if he had failed to hear.

Heather spoke. 'What does her albinism involve?'

The change of voice appeared to reawaken him from his stupor.

'Fair skin, fair hair, but mainly her eyes; they are the lightest blue. She's the first one in generations.

It's a recessive gene. Dammy is a throwback.'

'Dammy?'

'As in Damson.'

'That's her name?'

'No. Her name is Nella. Damson is her nickname because our elder sister is known as Plum, though her real name is Victoria. Family joke.'

The joyous wit of the English upper classes, thought Foster. Nella was one of the names Barnes had suggested might tally.

'Does your sister have any tattoos that you are aware of?' he asked.

Again the pause while the words penetrated. 'Not that I recall. Can't say I've ever studied her that closely. But it wouldn't surprise me if she had.'

'Sorry to be as bold as this, Mr Perry, but does your sister have breast implants?'

Perry looked at him; Foster could see he was only just managing to hold it together.

'Yes, she does. Her unusual looks get her a lot of attention. She doesn't exactly run away from that attention. Makes the most of it, in fact. Hence the implants. She has a newspaper column, dates men in the public eye.'

Great, thought Foster. If the body in the morgue was hers, every reptile in London would be crawling all over the case within hours of this getting out.

Serial killer, socialite and journalist, police missing the chance to catch her murderer: he could see the fall-out already.

'Are you a journalist, too?' he asked.

'No. An MP.'

As if the story was not sensational enough. He wondered whether the Perrys had risen to the top of the social and professional tree through hard work or a network of old school pals and family friends.

Smart money was on the latter.

'Can I ask when was the last time you heard from Nella?'

He couldn't bring himself to use her nickname.

'Friday afternoon. She and her latest boyfriend, a painter, were due to come to dinner last night. She rang to say it would be only her; they'd had a tiff. She never arrived. I thought perhaps they'd made up, that sort of thing. I called her mobile, but it was off.

Assumed she'd get in touch with one of her apologies at some point. She's very good at them; she'll make you forgive her anything.'

Foster was making notes. It was only when he looked up that he saw tears streaming down the man's face.

'Sorry,' Perry said, pulling a handkerchief from his trouser pocket.

'No need to be. Don't bottle it up on our behalf.'

Heather left the room and returned with a glass of water. She put it on the table and Perry gave her a thankful grimace.

'Do you have her boyfriend's details?'

Perry passed on what he knew. 'You think he might be responsible?'

Foster shrugged. 'We can't say.'

'I've never thought much of him,' Perry added, face reddening. 'Bit of a poseur, but never thought he was violent.'

'When did you notice the package?' Foster asked.

'Not until this lunchtime. It was on our back doorstep.

I took the rubbish out and there it was.'

'We need to take this box and the eyes for further examination. We'll also need to go and have a look around your garden, speak to some of your neighbours, see if they saw anyone or anything last night or this morning.' There was only one more question Foster needed to raise. 'If you feel up to it, we'll need you to identify the body of a young woman we found murdered last night.'

Perry nodded slowly, as if in a trance, pulling absent-mindedly at the loose skin under his chin.

'Of course,' he said faintly. 'Look, I need to make a phone call. Could you leave me alone for a few minutes?'

Foster and Heather left the room.

'The killer's getting more elaborate,' Foster hissed.

'More and more confident. Maybe too confident; they always make a mistake when they start to play too many games.'

Heather nodded. 'I know Dammy Perry,' she whispered. 'Well, not personally, but I've seen her column. It's in the Telegraph'

'Really?' Foster said. He got whatever news he needed online. He despised newspapers, their spin, lies and wilful deceit. 'I never had you down as the broadsheet type.'

She flashed back a sardonic smile. 'It's one of those diary columns. Except, rather than pop stars and footballers, it gossips about wealthy families, particularly the misbehaviour of their scions.'

'Serious stuff, then.'

Inside they could hear Perry murmuring on the phone.

'Don't suppose he's a member of the Socialist Workers' Party either,' Foster said.

Heather ignored him. 'It sounds like it's her. Bit of a new departure, if it is; sending the body parts to another member of the family.'

Foster sighed. 'The pattern is all over the place.

First victim looks like he was kidnapped two months before he was killed; the second barely two hours before he was killed. The second and third have had body parts removed, the first didn't. The second's hands are still missing, the third's eyes turn up the same morning as the body. The only thing that's constant is the reference and the fact that the place and time accord with the murders of 1879.'

The door handle turned. Perry emerged from the room. 'Let's get on with this,' he said.

Nigel had done all he could do to occupy himself that day, but no matter what he did -- opened a book, retreated into the past as his usual method of escape -- he was unable to expunge the image of the dead woman, her sightless eye sockets, her alabaster skin punctured with holes like black moons.

Towards the end of the afternoon, as he lay wide awake in bed seeking sleep he would never get, he heard the sound of his telephone. Thinking, hoping, it might be Foster and Jenkins, he scrambled out from the tangle of sheets and found it. The voice on the other end was familiar but unwelcome.

'Hello, Nigel.'

Gary Kent.

'What do you want?' he snapped. Knowing exactly what.

'Dammy Perry.'

'What?'

'The young woman whose body you stumbled across, if that's the right phrase, this morning. Was wondering if there's anything more you can tell me?'

'I'm not saying anything,' Nigel said, preparing to put the receiver back in its cradle.

'What, got another student in your bed, have you?'

Nigel froze. Unable to react.

'Two hours on a university campus can teach you many things. Hardly national news, but I'm sure I could get it placed somewhere.'

'Are you blackmailing me?'

Kent ignored his question. 'What's this about the cops getting the wrong tube station?'

How did he know that?

'Goodbye, Gary.'

He put the phone down, then picked it up and laid it off the hook. His hand trembled; Kent had shaken him. Dammy Perry, he had said the name was. At least Nigel now had a name to go with the face. He did not know what to think about Kent's revelation that he knew what had happened at the university. Should he tell Foster and Jenkins? He decided against it.

He dressed. He needed to go out, to walk and expend some energy. In the back of his mind he knew where he was going, but didn't yet want to ask himself why. Something was drawing him back there.

The early-evening air was fresh; it was still light and the streets around the Bush were crowded. He headed straight past the Green towards Holland Park, under the roundabout gridlocked by traffic even at the weekend. From there he headed up Holland Park Avenue, turning left into Princedale Road, past the silent garden squares overlooked by enormous stucco townhouses. Soon he was in the warren-like streets of Notting Dale. It was as if the air was different, less clear. He passed the old brick kiln on Walmer Road, the only relic of the time when the Dale was famous for three things: remorseless poverty, brick-making and pigs. Once, when the police came in to settle an altercation, the locals rose up against them, forming bricks out of the dried pig shit that covered the ground and hurling them at the cops. Dickens had written about this area, describing it as one of the most deprived in London, amazed that such squalor existed in the middle of such elegance.

The brick kiln was now a converted flat. Worth half a million pounds.

At the top of Walmer Road he cut through the corner of a council estate, arriving at Lancaster Road.

He could feel his throat tighten as he neared the scene. What he expected to find when he got there, he didn't know. He walked to Ladbroke Grove, past the tube station, following the same route as the previous night. There were fewer people but still the same throb of energy and life; it felt strange to him, as if the whole area should be in shock and mourning.

At the opening to the alleyway a solitary policeman stood sentinel. Behind him Nigel could see tape flapping in the wind; the scene was still closed. There was no way through. He walked up Ladbroke Grove, taking the first left down Cambridge Gardens, then a left on to St Mark's Road. As he turned he saw a police car blocking the entry, behind it more tape fluttering forlornly. Part of him was relieved; he wasn't sure what his reaction would have been if he'd been able to visit the scene.

He looked around: it was an anonymous part of town, nestling in the lea of the overhead motorway and a raised railway line. A light under the Westway glowed in the half-light, illuminating three recycling bins with broken glass scattered on the floor around one bin. He decided to make his way back home, perhaps stop off for a recuperative pint.

He passed under both the Westway and the tube line. A train rattled overhead, shaking the structure.

He crossed over, past a newly built close of houses.

And stopped.

He walked a few steps back. He read the name of the street once more: Bartle Road. It was not much of a street; on one side were beige-bricked bungalows, on the other were private parking spaces bordered by an old stone wall that backed on to the arches of the railway, where a garage had made its home. Nigel felt his heartbeat quicken. So this is where it was.

He walked down the street, counting off the houses. One, two, each of them identical. After number nine he stopped: between it and the next building was an incongruous gap. Visible over the top of the wall was a tangled bush, little else. The next house after the gap was number 11. It was true, he thought; there is no number 10. When Rillington Place was bulldozed in the 1970s, it was rebuilt and renamed Bartle Road. But, obviously, the developers had decided to take no chances and had left a hole where number 10 should have been.

These sordid stories of London's past delighted him; dark secrets that offered a glimpse behind the city's net curtains. Ten Rillington Place was the home of John Christie, a post-war serial killer who strangled a string of young women he had lured back to his rotting, soot-soaked little Victorian terraced house.

He had sex with their lifeless corpses before either burying them in the garden or, as he did with his wife's remains, stowing them in a cupboard. He was hanged for his crimes, though only after Timothy Evans, a barely literate neighbour of Christie's, had been wrongly executed for murdering his wife and child. The real culprit, Christie, had been chief prosecution witness at Evans's trial.

Nigel stood staring at the gap. He had come to revisit one murder scene, only to encounter another.

Little more than a hundred yards away from this scene of horror, another serial killer was writing his name into London legend. When he was eventually brought to justice, would they bulldoze any of the buildings in which this killer had struck? Nigel knew such efforts were futile. The past cannot be erased so easily. You can knock something down; you can change names; you can try all you want to wipe these acts from history, he thought. But the past seeps back through the soil, like blood through sand. Or lingers in the air. Always there.

He pulled his brick of a mobile from his pocket and dialled Foster.

Seeing his sister's mutilated corpse had broken Simon Perry. After nodding to indicate it was her, his legs had crumpled beneath him. Foster helped him to a side room and summoned a doctor. He was sedated and taken home. After making sure he was all right, Foster returned to the corpse. The cleaned, livid wounds across her breasts spelled out the reference.

Closer inspection of the body also revealed several track marks in her arm that suggested drug use. Her internal organs displayed no sign of damage from heavy use.

He and Heather returned to the incident room in Kensington. Waiting for them was Nella Perry's boyfriend, Jed Garvey. He turned out to be the sort of Trustafarian fool for whom Foster had nothing but disdain. With no need to make a living between dates, dealers and dinner parties, these people, he imagined, flitted from one job to another, alighting on something that would fill their time, give them a cachet, until it became financially unviable and they were either bailed out or moved on to a horse of a different colour.

Jed Garvey was a painter, so he said. Foster guessed that Picasso and Pollock needn't worry about their place in history just yet. He was beanpole skinny, over six feet in height. His face was long and cloaked in at least a week's growth of stubble. His hair looked like it had fallen out of a tree and landed on his head.

He was wearing a battered suit jacket over a V-neck jumper, faded jeans and baseball boots.

His face was gaunt, drawn from hearing of his girlfriend's death. They got him a coffee and let him stew for a few seconds.

'That is one good-looking bloke,' Heather said.

'You don't mean you think that lanky streak of piss is attractive, do you?' Foster said, appalled.

'There's something about him.'

'Yeah, a bundle in the bank courtesy of Daddy.'

'Cynical or jealous -- difficult to guess which.'

'Jealous? Of him? The Bumfluff Kid?'

'Word has it he's dated some of the most beautiful young models, actresses and society beauties in London.'

'He's welcome to them. You spend a lot of time reading those gossip columns, then?'

'Light relief,' she said. 'Funny, Dammy Perry used to mention him a lot in her diary.'

'Bet she did. That's how it works for these people, isn't it? There's probably a thousand artists out there better than him, but they aren't shagging society journalists.' Foster sighed. 'You handle this one. I'm worried there might be more severed parts by the end of the interview if I do it.'

They went back into the room. Garvey was seated, his arms wrapped around his chest, staring at the desk in front of him. Heather put the coffee down and gave him a comforting smile.

'I realize this has come as a bit of a shock,' she said.

Garvey just nodded, eyes vacant.

'We need to go through a few things. Just routine.

It will help us catch whoever did this.'

Garvey nodded once more. 'The last thing I said to her was "Fuck off",' he said, then shook his head. 'Do you know how awful that feels? To know that was the last thing you said to someone you loved?'

Heather nodded sympathetically. Foster felt an unexpected twang of sympathy. The last thing he got to say to his father was that he loved him and respected him.

'I can't imagine,' Heather said softly. 'Tell us about the last time you saw her.'

He took a deep breath. 'It was Friday lunchtime.

Dammy was in good spirits because her agent had got her a deal for a book idea she had. We went to the Electric on Portobello Road to celebrate. A few friends joined us; we ate, drank champagne, they left. Then, well you know what it's like, you've been in high spirits, you drink too much, you say the wrong thing.'

'What did you say?'

'She thought I was jealous. I've been struggling a bit lately, not showing or selling much. It was getting me down. After a few drinks I suppose I got a bit peeved that she'd got a deal for an idea she'd scribbled on the back of a fag packet, yet here was I, with a studio full of pictures that nobody wanted. I said something about good fortune smiling on her and she laid into me.'

'What did she say?'

'She called me a waster, a loser, said that I was lazy and expected the world to come to me. That's when I told her to fuck off. She got her bag, got up and walked out. Didn't say a word; didn't even look at me.'

'You didn't try to follow her?' Heather asked.

To Foster, this sounded suspiciously like criticism, but Garvey took it in his stride.

'No. We rowed a bit but always made up. She's feisty . . . was feisty. Best thing to do in those circumstances was call it a day, and apologize later.'

The fact that he would never get that chance was left hanging in the air.

'Do you know where she went afterwards?'

'I assumed she'd gone home. We'd just started living together. When I got back and she wasn't there, I just thought she was at some friend's. It had happened before. She'd put me in the cooler for a day or two.'

'Surely, on Saturday, when she hadn't come home, you got worried?'

'To be honest, I got so wasted on Friday night that Saturday just drifted by. I tried to call her a million times on her mobile, but it was off. We were supposed to be going round to her brother's on Saturday night, but she just didn't come back. I went out and got wasted again.'

'Let me get this straight,' Foster interjected. 'You have a row, she walks out and you don't see her for two days and you don't do anything other than leave a few messages on her mobile? You don't try her friends, her brother or anyone else?'

Garvey flicked his eyes from Heather to Foster.

'With respect, you didn't know Dammy; she was an independent spirit. She wouldn't have appreciated me stalking her.'

She might have done, given that she had been kidnapped and was then killed, thought Foster, but he said nothing.

'Sorry, but I need to ask you some difficult questions,'

Heather said, stepping back in, waiting for Garvey to indicate that would be OK. 'When you'd rowed before, did Dammy ever go off with someone else? I'm thinking specifically of another man.'

'Never. No way. She'd had her fair share of boyfriends but, as far as I know, she was faithful. She once told me she'd cut my balls off if she ever found out I'd cheated on her. I know where she went. She'd have gone to the Prince of Wales in Holland Park; it was her favourite pub. She knew people in there, the staff, the regulars. It was why I didn't go there; didn't fancy venturing into enemy territory during a state of conflict.' He smiled weakly, though it vanished immediately. 'Of course, now I wish I had done.'

Garvey's head bowed and his eyes looked to the floor.

And you always will, Foster thought.

He remembered the Prince of Wales on Princedale Road as an old man's local boozer, all stained carpets and garish lights; now it was stripped wood bars, Belgian beers, and candles on each table. There were few traditional pubs left in the area. Foster wondered what happened to the regulars of gentrified pubs.

Did the brewery round them up and shoot them?

Checks had been made on Dammy Perry's movements.

Garvey had been the last of her family and close friends to see her; a scan of her credit card and bank-account history showed no activity since Friday morning.

It was early evening and the pub was still full from the Sunday-lunch trade, the bright young things of Holland Park and Notting Hill taking the edge off their weekend hangovers. Heather asked to see the manager, a fat, amiable-looking Geordie. He had not been at work on Friday, but called one of his bar staff across. Karl was a wiry, dark-eyed man in his thirties with a long face that wore the leathery imprint of a life lived in front of a bar.

Foster asked if there was somewhere quiet to speak and Karl led them out to the beer garden, which was empty save for two smokers gathered under an overhead burner. The familiar scent drifted under Foster's nostrils and reminded him how much he missed the habit.

Foster asked if he knew Dammy Perry. He did.

'Was she in here on Friday afternoon?' he asked.

'She came in about three or four o'clock, I reckon.'

'On her own?'

'Don't remember anyone else with her. A couple of people she knew were here having a drink, so she sat with them. They left after about half an hour and she came out here.'

'On her own?'

'No. There was a bloke, too.'

'Where did he come from?'

'Can't remember. Think he came in for a drink after her. All I remember is coming out here to collect a few glasses and seeing him and her sat at that table.

They were both smoking. I remember that because she didn't smoke unless she was well gone. Is she all right?'

Heather was scribbling furiously.

'We found her body last night. She'd been murdered.

We think she was last seen here on Friday.'

'Christ,' he said, wind knocked from him. 'Murdered?

Who'd want to murder a gorgeous woman like that?'

'That's what we're trying to find out,' Foster said.

'Did you know the man she was sitting with?'

'Never seen him before.'

'When did they leave?'

'I don't know. I came out about an hour later to collect more glasses, about five o'clock, and they'd gone.'

'Would anyone else have seen them?'

'Sonia was on, but she was working the bar mainly.'

He scratched absent-mindedly at the back of his head. 'Still can't believe she was murdered, like. That's horrible.'

'Was there anything about him you remember?'

He spent some time in thought, stifled a yawn, then spoke. 'Nothing springs to mind. He was wearing shades and he had a round face, pudding-basin sort of dark hair. He was thickset, too, but he was sat down so . . . He was drinking Virgin Marys, I know that. Can't remember the face, but I never forget an order.'

'Is there anyone in the pub now who was in then?'

'Don't think so. Sunday's a different crowd to the rest of the week.'

'We need you to come and help us do a photo fit as soon as possible.'

'Sure, if it's OK with the boss.'

He went inside to check.

'Darbyshire disappeared after going out of a pub for a smoke,' Foster said to Heather. 'Ellis and Perry were last seen in a pub. Think we're getting closer to knowing how he picks his victims up.'

'Pretty public place to operate.'

'Look at it this way: it's an easy way to lace a drink.'

'Rohypnol?'

'Something like that. Next thing you know, they're out of it.'

'Park your vehicle nearby. Help them in. Nothing untoward about helping someone the worse for wear outside a pub,' Heather added.

The barman returned. 'I'm ready when you are,'

he said.

'We'll also need to get in touch with whoever was serving the bar that night. Sonia, was it?' Foster said.

'The boss says he'll give her a call'

'What was Dammy drinking, do you remember?'

'Same as always. Vodka, lime and soda.'

Ruled out Rohypnol. The makers put a blue dye in it to guard against spiking. She would have noticed.

Though it could have been a counterfeit. And there were any number of other 'date rape' drugs it could be. Toxicology would tell them more.

A few hours later, they called it a night. Foster was looking forward to getting home, climbing into a few glasses of red then seeking sanctuary in sleep. His whole body ached and creaked from weariness; a headache had settled behind his tired eyes.

They had a sketch of the suspect. Tomorrow they would show it to everyone in the lives of their three victims, as well as to everyone who might have seen them in the final hours before their disappearances.

They had also lifted a print from the box containing Nella Perry's eyes. It had been put through the database, but there had been no matches. Still, together with the description, it was a start.

He would wait until Detective Superintendent Harris, his boss, was in tomorrow before he released the sketch to the media. Harris had been summoned back from his holiday in Spain, so Foster knew he would not be in the best of moods. The press bureau had been briefed after sinking under an avalanche of calls when Nella Perry's demise circulated around Fleet Street. There was to be a briefing at eight the following morning for the whole team, a chance to sift all the facts and see what emerged.

Then there had been Barnes's phone call, about Rillington Place. It fascinated him. Was there any significance to it?

He found Heather preparing to leave.

'Ever heard of psychogeography?' Foster asked her.

She made a face. 'Teach it at universities now, do they?'

'Don't start me,' he said. 'No, it was Barnes's phone call. For some reason he found himself back in North Kensington, near the murder scene. Apparently, just around the corner is the site of 10 Rillington Place.'

'The Christie--Evans murders,' exclaimed Heather.

'I remember a mate of my old man, a gnarled old-school detective,' Foster said. 'You know, the sort you'd want on the job if your daughter had been killed. He was talking about that case once. He knew one of the coppers who was given the job of removing the bodies. Someone asked him a few years later whether he received any counselling. He said, "Well, the district inspector bought me a pint."'

Despite his exhaustion, Foster rumbled with laughter.

Heather looked heavenwards. 'So what did Nigel want?'

'He just thought I should know that Rillington Place was near, in case it was important.'

'Do you think it is?'

'Could be. Anything could be. At the moment this case is like moulding milk; it's spilling out everywhere.'

He paused. 'I told him we'll need him tomorrow. I can't help feeling that if we're going to get anywhere near to solving the present, we're going to have to know everything we can about the past.

Only then will things make sense.'

'And what is psychogeography?'

'According to Barnes, it's the theory that some places always carry the stain or stigma of the past; these places can then have an effect on people's emotions, behaviour and actions.'

'Sounds interesting,' Heather said.

'Sounds like he's lost his marbles,' Foster said.

'You're quite taken with his barmy little theories and interests. You like him, don't you?'

'He's good at his job,' she replied, flicking a stray hair from her brow.

'Not that sort of like, the other sort.'

'Do I fancy him, you mean?'

Foster smiled. Heather often did that: confronted the subject head-on, rather than skirt around it. She claimed it was her northern upbringing, where people called a spade a bloody shovel. In the south of England, so her theory went, people euphemized and pussyfooted around. Whatever the reasons, Foster liked it and he knew she admired him for the same quality. Unlike some other junior officers, she had never been intimidated by his presence or nature.

'He's all right,' she said. 'Quite dishy.'

'Really?' he replied; Foster had him down as a bit geeky.

'That's because the last three blokes I've seen have been coppers. He's about as far removed from that world as can be. For a start, he's intelligent.' Foster ignored the slight; she wasn't finished listing his qualities.

'Yes, he's a bit shy and reserved but he has lots of energy. He's a good listener, too, which is hardly a trait you meet in most modern men. And he's enthusiastic and passionate about what he does for a living, not world-weary and cynical. God, I'm so bored with world-weary and cynical.'

Foster knew both adjectives could well be applied to him. He could not remember ever having been innocent and idealistic. Those attributes tended not to flourish in murder squads.

'He also has a gorgeous pair of blue eyes that you want to dive into,' she added, then gave him a victorious smile. 'You did ask.'

'Well, can you lead him astray after the case is closed?' he said, putting on his jacket.